I made this image on a whim and it ended up going viral with several thousand shares

Hurricane Matthew was scheduled to come within just a few miles of our coast as a very powerful Category 4 Hurricane.

The reactions of the locals ranged from “the sky is falling, run for your lives” to “it’s nothing”. Thankfully our prepper skills came in handy. Since we plan early for hurricane season we didn’t have to deal with the madness of Walmart, Home Depot, etc. We live in a mandatory evacuation zone due to my front door being less than 1,000 feet from the river. Normally I would be mandated to work at a local shelter but my son was sick and contagious and thus unable to be in the shelter childcare.

I have a bug out bag with essentials so packing wasn’t too difficult and the only stress for us what where/when to evacuate. I did have an internal struggle between wanting to bring everything that I didn’t want destroyed in the storm vs. bringing just what we need to get through the storm. In the end I compromised, I brought our textbooks and curriculum as I would have hated to see them destroyed and just tried to protect the rest of the items from water if the house flooded.

We lucked out with a decent rate at a local hotel thanks to a homeschooling association discount so we didn’t have to go far. During this process my children learned a lot about the weather, hurricanes, weather forecasting, trajectory tracking and more. So while we haven’t cracked open a book in days, learning has been a continuous process.

Our curriculum evacuated with us

In the end the hurricane made an unexpected wobble in it’s trajectory at the last minute that had it passing further away from the coast. We still had a sleepless night listening to the howling wind but were blessed to get through it unscathed and still having a home to come back to. Not everybody was so fortunate, that could have been us.

Now I am trying to get back to some semblance of normal, difficult as our household is in flux due to uncertainties about an upcoming move. I used to be a gypsy but lost those skills. The stress has impacted routines and affected our immune systems, we tend to be fairly healthy but not this month. For the first time ever everybody in the house is sick at the same time, that is not very conducive to productivity.

I am supposed to be packing but I am writing this instead because I didn’t want to leave you hanging. There it will be a while longer before I can get back to a semi-normal writing schedule but I hope to be able to pipe in as I am able. Meanwhile I’ll be posting on Facebook…

I was recently approached by Pley, a toy rental company offering me 1 free month of service with no obligation to review although they would appreciate that. I decided to give the service a shot since it is something that I had looking into and considered trying in the past.

As part of the sign up process I got to select which toy we wanted to receive, I was afraid of renting a LEGO set due to our experience with another toy rental company and my kids being heartbroken at having to return them so I chose a different toy that my children had expressed interest in at the store.

Order processing was super fast! I got a shipping notification within minutes of submitting the order but the shipping method used was very slow so the cross country trek took over a week.

Box opening

The toy pieces arrived in a mesh zipper bag with laminated instructions which I like. There were no pieces missing and the kids were super excited. There was a surprise gift included for my son to keep, a silicon Lego bracelet that he could attach bricks and minifigures to, he loved it!

Free gift- my son was surprised to get a LEGO compatible bracelet to keep

Laminated instructions

Customizable wish list, select categories to be suggested toys, x out the ones you are not interested in, star the ones you want to get

Ability to buy the toy if the child wants to keep it

Pley donates a toy to underprivileged children for every new member

Ability to print return label from website if you loose the one included in the box

As soon as the return tracking is active you can choose next toy that you want which saves time in waiting for the next toy

Referral program. You can earn free months of service by telling your friends about it.

What I didn’t like:

No search feature for toys, I have to scroll through pages and pages of Lego sets and can’t search by name

Some toys are not a good value. I saw several Lego sets that can be purchased for less than the cost of 1 month’s subscription so I recommend using this for bigger Lego sets and fancy toys to make sure that you are getting a good value

Despite it shipping quickly, it was with a slow method that took over a week to arrive, time is money when you are paying a rental by the month.

Toy purchase price was a couple of dollars higher than the regular price at several local and online stores

The kids were captivated

About the toy itself

We chose the Nano V2 Helix 180° toy. This is something that the kids had showed interest in at the store so we decided to try it.

The toy instructions were practically useless, not very user friendly but thankfully the toy wasn’t hard to figure out. Once assembled the boys had a lot of fun playing with it and customizing the configuration of the tunnels.

The bug would sometimes get stuck on its side and we had to right it before it entered a tunnel otherwise it would get stuck on the tunnel, other than that it was a great toy. The boys liked it enough to want to keep it but we chose to return it to buy a slightly different version of the toy that offers more configuration options.

Affordable plans with no commitments

Bottom Line

This toy rental service is a great concept and fits a need in the market. This service is good for people that have limited space and don’t want to accumulate toys that don’t get played with after a while. Your child can play with the same toy until the novelty wears off and then choose something different.

It is also good for when your child wants a very expensive toy that you don’t think would be a good value long term. For example, I love building with LEGO but don’t want to spend several hundred dollars on a fancy LEGO set that I will only build once. With Pley I can rent it, build it, take pictures, play with it for a bit and then return it without such a huge hit on my wallet.

Disclosure
I received a free toy rental with no obligation for a review. The opinions expressed are my own.

If you are a follower in my Facebook page you’ll know that the last 2 weeks have been challenging. What seemed like a simple slip and fall at work has turned into a severe ankle sprain that 2 weeks later still has me using a cane to walk and receiving physical therapy. I live in a 2 story house with my computer on the second floor and I could barely walk for the first few days so I fell behind on everything. Fast forward 2 weeks, I can walk with some pain but I can walk. Stairs are no fun but I can manage them and I am trying to catch up.

Making something good out of the bad= my latest project.

During my invalid stage I did have a Chromebook available but no inspiration to write and could tell that I was beginning to get depressed so I put all of my energy during that time parked on the couch to good use and built a new website from the ground up. I present to you my new child: Treasure Coast Homeschooling.

This website is a resource for local homeschoolers in my area to find a directory of resources and events. If you have any articles on homeschooling that would be helpful for the 101 section you are encouraged to submit. If you have a service that is of interest to homeschoolers in my area you are welcome to contribute. It’s free to list in the directory and calendar. Featured listings, sponsorships and advertising are available for a nominal cost. Feel free to visit the site and contact me if you want to learn more.

Now that the website is up and running I don’t expect it to take away from my time in this blog. My challenge with writing a post lately was a big case of feeling sorry for myself and not being inspired, not lack of time.

Homeschooling was severely affected during my injury, during the first few days we strictly unschooled because I had no way of reaching the materials that were stored in the second floor. Thankfully the Olympics were still on during that time so they learned a lot from that and we did a lot of reading and online games. We have resumed “formal” work this week on a light load and adding a little bit each day. I am so glad for our laid back approach or the OCD/ Type A in me would be having a panic attack at falling behind.

I am sharing this partially to explain my “radio silence” but also to let you know that it’s OK for homeschooling to be disrupted when life happens, part of the beauty of it is that children never really stop learning and homeschooling is so flexible that it can adapt to most anything.

I am hoping that the muses will start visiting me regularly again so I can get back on track with posting new content.